


time travel and sympathy

by carpenter



Category: Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg, Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:13:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpenter/pseuds/carpenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holtzmann discovers time (and space?) travel, and makes a friend</p>
            </blockquote>





	time travel and sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ficlet --- it's part of a longer idea which i'm not going to write (much as the full time-travelling adventures of Holtzmann and Idgie would be a heck of a lot of fun), and is unbetaed, but i am posting it anyway because if you're in the target audience, you probably know. :>)

Holtzmann finds herself tossing and turning on the narrow bed in the warm apartment, and eventually gives up and goes to the kitchen, wincing at the noise when she misjudges a creaky floorboard.

She needn't have worried, it turns out --- her hostess is up too, sitting on a counter stool drinking PBR from a bottle. "Oh," Holtzmann says quietly, "Sorry to intrude." Idgie waves away the apology and converts the gesture to point at the box of beer under the counter. "Join the party."

Idgie looks abstracted; the manic energy with which she orchestrated the first prison break Holtzmann has ever witnessed earlier in the day has bled away. Now that Holtzmann thinks about it, she's been quiet since dinner, maybe since someone politely asked Miss Holtzmann (she'd avoided cringing every time someone said "Miss Jillian" by the simple expedient of not providing a first name) what she did with herself in the future.

Idgie had stayed at the celebratory meal and helped keep the conversation and food going --- Holtzmann suspected that these people looked on abandoning their hosting duties about as kindly as her friends would take to running away in the middle of a fight --- but she'd been awfully quiet since Holtzmann had mentioned studying ghosts.

Oh. Holtzmann curses herself silently as she realises what she's looking at. She doesn't get involved in the Ghostbusters' customer-facing business very often --- it's more often Patty or (God help them all) Kevin --- but she's been around enough to notice a certain subset of potential customers who hear "ghosts are real" and think "these women can reunite me with the person I miss most in the world." They basically have to laugh at those customers (behind their backs, of course) --- think about that too hard, and suddenly you're too depressed to do your job, and then where are you?

But obviously this lovely woman, who was afraid of radiation but not of bees, who took great joy in the clear moral necessity of flaunting law enforcement, who told jokes and said "son of a bitch" readily in her perfect Southern accent, who was well over halfway to charming Holtzmann, was also one of these disappointed customers, with a ghost in her head she wished more than anything she could see again.

Holtzmann takes a swig of the offered beer, and pulls up a counter stool. Well, no point beating around the bush about it. "That's not how ghosts work." Idgie looks up, surprised into a smile. "What isn't how ghosts work, o mind reader?" Holtzmann takes a deep breath. "They're not benign, pretty much ever. There's some pretty interesting math behind this... Erin is trying to get me to collaborate on a paper... it's complicated... but the point is that ghosts on this plane scientifically _can't_ have positive feelings about the living. It's an impossibility. So if you did manage to see the ghost of someone you desperately wanted to see alive, it would pretty much be the worst day of your life all over again."

Idgie laughs. "The future must be a real treat. No fresh vegetables and no common sense. I may not have a formula to prove it, but trust me, no one here thinks the dead are going to just stop by for a cup of tea or a picnic." She swallows. "I was never going to ask you about that. But it's only been a year, and it's just hard when I stop and think about it, that's all."

"Who was..." Holtzmann pauses minutely --- they are in Alabama in 1949, and she doesn't want to cause offense, but now that she's thought about it, she knows she's not wrong "...she?"

"Ruth Jamison," Idgie says, and there's no mistaking her pride at attaching herself to this name Holtzmann has never heard. "I think there's a photo in Stump's room where you're staying. She was beautiful and everyone was in love with her. A little older than me, and strait-laced as hell, but I could always make her laugh." Holtzmann smirks, a little sheepishly. "What?" "Oh, nothing, just reminds me a bit of someone I know." (Someone who, Holtzmann is abruptly reminded, is going to be furious and scared at Holtz going off to explore her dangerous theories about time-travel-via-spectral-plane without a word in advance. Oh well. She'll get back fine --- it's the plan.)

"What about you?" Idgie asks curiously. "Are you married, in this strange future where you've never tasted real honey which I hope to never live to see?" "Hah, no. We are cowards in the future... I've never asked her. She could say no. She could be straight. We have to work together."

Idgie looks witheringly unsympathetic. "Look, I can't say I took advantage of every day. I was selfish and mean and needed my big independent adventures." (Was that an intentional potshot to make Holtzmann feel like shit? Surely her hostess can't actually read her mind that clearly.) "But she saved my life when I was a kid, and in the end I saved her life at least for a little while, and in between were the loveliest times I ever had. Don't be a coward.

"Besides," Idgie smiles, her eyes crinkling, "I'm sure she can't resist you." She puts a hand out, touching Holtzmann's arm, and Holtzmann knows what she's offering, what she's asking --- not an open invitation or the love of anyone's life, but a moment of comfort between adventurers. Holtzmann stands and leans in for a kiss. She's sure they've both exchanged (or at least dreamed about) filthy kisses in their lives, but this one is gentle, standing still for a long moment, Holtz giving in to the temptation to twine her fingers in Idgie's gorgeous mess of hair.

They wind up in the dark, cigarette-smelling master bedroom, and screw carefully but with determination --- they're not lovers, but they have something to share nonetheless. Holtzmann sneaks out before dawn, feeling irrationally that time is running out to get back to 2016 New York. Idgie watches her go, mentally adding the one-night stand with a time traveller to her list of stories to never tell her grandchildren.


End file.
